Discussion on Greek political, financial issues + new elections

[alhoon]

Nationalization of Motoroil and ELPE (Hellenic Petroleum) would be disastrous. This are big industry businesses that buy stuff, refine it and sell it a profit. Why nationalize them? After all they're not using Greek sources.

[Nicov55]

To the Greek voters, i feel like saying: look at Venezuela, look at the result, and you do not even have oil.
Now of course, they are free to choose whatever representatives they want: yet i am afraid that the outcome will be the fruit of resentment rather than hope.

[Braindead Colonel]

So, Braindead Colonel, could you name a few expectations you have from SYRIZA with respect to the policy they are going to pursue against the oligarchs? Are they going to nationalise Hellenic Petroleum and MotorOil? Are they going to break up their oligopoly by introducing new market players? What about public constructions? Are they going to renegotiate the Attiki Odos Concession Agreement, for example? Are they going to revoke Athens Mall's legalisation under fast-track proceedures? Will they end the subsidisation of Kopelouzos' and Mytilinaios' windfarms? Give us the measure by which you are going to judge their success or lack thereof.

Cancelling the sale of the Hellinikon to Latsis and the transfer of properties that are protected (Natura 2000) to the ΤΑΙΠΕΔ for privatization; I am pretty sure the Athen's Mall was deemed legal by the Supreme Court of Greece (Areios Pagos), and I don't want the government to influence the judicial system.

I'd also want recycling to be implemented throughout Greece, as well as numerous landfill projects to be re-evaluated objectively. Also many restrictions placed on Eldorado Gold's activities in Chalkidiki.

The water sources and distribution network to remain public property, as well as the electricity distribution network (ΔΕΗ). But I don't want nationalizations of private industry. This leftist government will have more than enough enemies as it is, domestic and foreign.

Oh, and to make Greece's debt viable through a haircut. I think that would be enough for me, for the first year.

To the Greek voters, i feel like saying: look at Venezuela, look at the result, and you do not even have oil.

Yeah, that's the kind of bull the stations are trying to scare people with. The country has 25% unemployment, you can't scare the hungry with tales of impoverishment.

[Nicov55]

Yeah, that's the kind of bull the stations are trying to scare people with. The country has 25% unemployment, you can't scare the hungry with tales of impoverishment.

It can always get worse, unfortunately.
Don't misunderstand me, i have no will to scare anyone. In fact, when all this crisis started, i always said that Europe had a debt towards Greece since this is the place and the people who pretty much created everything Europe stands for. I condemn the crual politics that were imposed on Greece and would instead have liked both the Greeks and International Institution to agree on and choose a smoother path: reforms, yes, but not at that cost. Let's just print money. The Euro value drops? Who cares, it was overvalued anyway and we europeans will just export more goods and attract more tourists.
My point is that the far left has never been able to run a country with efficiency and the only thing they leave when removed from office has always been less pluralism, less wealth and just more work to do rebuilding.

[fkizz]

...to leftists.Indeed, fkizz. Bankocracy is a natural enemy of freedom, pluralism of opinions, divergent voices,national constitutions, and political parties.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Epic picture is epic.

I just don't think the problem is the banks themselves. The banks exist because people complain about them but in the end want them to exist. No one wants to store their life savings inside their matress, with so much potential thievery around. There would be even less peace of mind, and more incentive to crime.

Simple as that. A bank is a tool, neither good nor evil, just like a fork is a tool, can be used to eat along with a knife or to murder. Banks are powerful indeed but not powerful enough to stop an economic crisis, as so far shows. Also hard to see the line where a white colar crime is being comited or where simply a bad decision was made.

The root of the problem goes much deeper..

[Ludicus]

Epic picture is epic.

I just don't think the problem is the banks themselves.

Well,there are various types of banks. The problem is the excessive power of banks over government. In other words, bankocracy. It's a long story: the Knights Templar and Philip the Fair in the 12th century (we know what happened to them -where is Philip when we need him..),the Venetian bankers in the 11/14th century, etc. They are still here- with a global power.

[fkizz]

Well,there are various types of banks. The problem is the excessive power of banks over government. In other words, bankocracy. It's a long story: the Knights Templar and Philip the Fair in the 12th century (we know what happened to them -where is Philip when we need him..),the Venetian bankers in the 11/14th century, etc. They are still here- with a global power.

Alright, you have your opinion and I'm ok with that. Just don't forget Portugal was forged thanks to the Knights Templar. So be careful when pointing fingers.

[Knight of Heaven]

Alright, you have your opinion and I'm ok with that. Just don't forget Portugal was forged thanks to the Knights Templar. So be careful when pointing fingers.

Admitedely The knights Templar were more then banks... Not only they had other business, they also had lands and power in higher strats of society.
Anyway, the way i see it, no one is hating the banks, because they are banks. But because of their conduit, and lack of restrain, or regulation as you want to put it. The financial instituitions where soley responsable by the 2008 crash, due to badly regulated schemes that caused overlending.
The euro crisis, not only was created due to 2008 crisis, but also because alot of european countries where living above their means, and guess who was always happy to lend the money?
Exactly the banks.
If the sovereign goverments where irresponsible, so where the banks, allthough there is more factors at play when considering the eurozone, and the EU.

[Platon]

On the other hand, if we didn't have the financialisation of our economies and the private banks lending out recklessly, we wouldn't have the fantastic development we had since the 70:s. We would be stuck in an endless deflation trap with nowhere to go. If we insist on capitalism, we have to take the bad with the good
While the general public suffers, the top 1% keep increasing their wealths. If fact, at record speed since the 'crash' of 2008. The 85 richest individuals in the world are as wealthy as HALF the population in the world. The same goes with the wealthiest greeks. They keep increasing their wealth and the rest of the country suffers!

[Akrotatos]

With each passing elections the desperation I feel at not having anything to vote only gets stronger. I am contemplating ND but only because I think that SYRIZA are old PASOK thieves joined with leftist idiots that can not be predicted at all. At least with ND I know what levels of corruption and stupidity to expect.....

[Stavroforos]

With each passing elections the desperation I feel at not having anything to vote only gets stronger. I am contemplating ND but only because I think that SYRIZA are old PASOK thieves joined with leftist idiots that can not be predicted at all. At least with ND I know what levels of corruption and stupidity to expect.....

I've never known who to vote for in Greece. Ideology is pointless, and it seems one has to be a complete realist when deciding who they vote for. I am most likely going to vote for ND but I'm hating the fact that I'm voting for a socially backwards religious fundamentalist group, but I'm a straight native Greek and at this point I have to care more about my future here than about gay marriage.

[Braindead Colonel]

I have to care more about my future here than about gay marriage.

Then I hope you are part of that small elite group ND now solely caters to; their agenda is pretty clear: use the debt as an excuse to enrich their friends at the expense of everyone else.

Country is in debt -> Sell-off public property to oligarchs for pennies!
Country is in debt -> Reduce business taxation to attract "investments"
etc...

They want the debt at these unsustainable levels, its the perfect bogey-man. But hey, at least you won't disappoint the former minister of Health and current pm of ND, Adonis.

[Stavroforos]

Then I hope you are part of that small elite group ND now solely caters to; their agenda is pretty clear: use the debt as an excuse to enrich their friends at the expense of everyone else.

Country is in debt -> Sell-off public property to oligarchs for pennies!
Country is in debt -> Reduce business taxation to attract "investments"
etc...

They want the debt at these unsustainable levels, its the perfect bogey-man. But hey, at least you won't disappoint the former minister of Health and current pm of ND, Adonis.

Well, I don't think ND will do much, I just don't have any confidence in SYRIZA either. At this point though I don't know if I'm the one talking or if it's the constant barrage of fear from the news. I just don't think there's a party that stands up for me as a relatively young middle-class unemployed guy, but I'm afraid to take any risks that might mean going back to crisis, even if it might pay off in the future.

[Braindead Colonel]

I just don't have any confidence in SYRIZA either.

I don't blame you, they may very well fail to follow through with their promises. I just find NDs hypocrisy overwhelming, and the prospect of them staying in power (along with Pasok-Potami) more scary than the drachma.

In any case, best of luck to all of us after the 25th.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

Well, I don't think ND will do much, I just don't have any confidence in SYRIZA either. At this point though I don't know if I'm the one talking or if it's the constant barrage of fear from the news. I just don't think there's a party that stands up for me as a relatively young middle-class unemployed guy, but I'm afraid to take any risks that might mean going back to crisis, even if it might pay off in the future.

Liberal parties like Recreate Greece and Drasi would have been your best shot in the previous elections, but RG won't participate and Drasi is merely a constituent of Potami now. It's really a shame that the liberal movement failed to make it to the parliament in 2012, when it had gathered up so much momentum. I feel for you, Stav. I also feel deeply disappointed by the available choices.

[Akrotatos]

I've never known who to vote for in Greece. Ideology is pointless, and it seems one has to be a complete realist when deciding who they vote for. I am most likely going to vote for ND but I'm hating the fact that I'm voting for a socially backwards religious fundamentalist group, but I'm a straight native Greek and at this point I have to care more about my future here than about gay marriage.

This sums up my feelings perfectly.

[Ludicus]

Alright, you have your opinion and I'm ok with that. Just don't forget Portugal was forged thanks to the Knights Templar...

Good point- but its a symbolic analogy. In France the king eliminated both his creditors and his debt by demonising the Knights Templar, but today the banks have nothing to fear from the governments.

Knight of Heaven

anyway, the way i see it, no one is hating the banks, because they are banks. But because of their conduit, and lack of restrain, or regulation as you want to put it.

That's it.

[Hobbes]

when it had gathered up so much momentum.

On another planet, perhaps. Most Greeks are pretty big on statism. One of the most common complaints you hear from people, regardless of political affiliation, is that ND "destroyed the state".

[neoptolemos]

I relate to this phenomenon, one of the main reasons the current government must be ousted

Call them Generation G: young, talented, Greek – and part of the biggest brain drain in an advanced western economy in modern times. As the country lurches towards critical elections this weekend, more than 200,000 Greeks who have left since the crisis bit five years ago will watch from overseas.

Doctors in Germany, academics in the UK, shopkeepers in America – the decimation of Greece’s population has perhaps been the most pernicious byproduct of the economic collapse which has beggared the country since its brush with bankruptcy.
“Greece is where I should be,” says Maritina Roppa, 28, a trainee doctor who left Greece three years ago for Minden, north-west Germany. “It’s such a pity that people like me, in their 20s, have had to go.”
Of the 2% of the population who have left, more than half have gone to Germany and the UK. Migration outflows have risen 300% on pre-crisis levels, as youth unemployment soars to more than 50%. Around 55% of those affected by record rates of unemployment are under 35, according to Endeavour, the international nonprofit group that supports entrepreneurship.
“It is a huge loss of human capital whose affects will only begin to be felt in the next decade,” said Aliki Mouri a sociologist at the National Centre for Social Research. “People who have been educated at great cost, both to their families and the public purse, are now working in wealthier countries which have not invested in them at all,” she added, acknowledging that even in good times Greece had difficulty absorbing the surplus of professionals its universities produced.
The north German town of Minden was not on Roppa’s radar when she elected to study medicine at Athens University in the late 1990s. She made the move when it became clear the alternative was years on a waiting list for a position as a specialist dermatologist. The omens did not bode well when the health service was among the sectors worst affected by budget cuts demanded in return for the EU-IMF sponsored bailouts that have kept the Greek economy afloat. “In Greece, hospitals were being shut and jobs axed,” she said. “In Germany, where there is a huge demand for doctors, you have the opportunity to thrive personally and professionally in a system that is very good, very structured, very modern.”
Some 35,000 Greek doctors – the biggest foreign group of its kind – have emigrated to Germany, according to German statistics cited in media reports. In sharp contrast to gastarbeiter (guest workers) who flocked to the country’s factories in the 1950s, the emigres are highly qualified.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...st-brain-drain

[Ludicus]

I relate to this phenomenon, one of the main reasons the current government must be ousted...

"health service was among the sectors worst affected by budget cuts demanded in return for the EU-IMF sponsored bailouts that have kept the Greek economy afloat. “In Greece, hospitals were being shut and jobs axed"
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...st-brain-drain

Same here, my friend. Our young doctors are leaving the country (there are no jobs in the NHS),the British NHS hospitals are recruiting Portuguese nurses in record numbers,hospitals are chaotic, understaffed and uncaring, patients found dead after waiting hours and hours in the emergency room- and God bless the destruction of the NHS.

----------------------------
Call by Greece's Syriza for debt talks has merit: Irish deputy

Ireland's deputy prime minister said on Wednesday she saw some merit in proposals by Greek leftist party Syriza for an international conference to renegotiate debts of Greece and some other euro zone states